Welcome To the Jungle, We've Got Peas and Beans

What? A mid-week post? You know it!

I actually intended to post this last week, but got distracted by the sunshine and bratwurst making. However, it's been a couple of months since I posted about our gardening adventures, and thought an update was in order.

Beans last week

Beans this week - they're taking over!

However, the pictures I took last week are no longer good, so I had to go play in the sun with my camera again. Shucks darn.

We simplified many of our garden plans from our original plan based on the seeds my parents donated and our lack of adventuresome spirit around my due date. For example, I really didn't want to lug my belly down to the FFA sale, so we have no tomatoes. Sadly. I'm going to try to convince my neighbor to give me one really good tomato to harvest seeds from for next year. We'll see how that works out.

What we ended up with was primarily peas and beans, which I'm OK with, since they're my favorites! They are also pretty low-maintenance, which is what we need this year! We also planted some squashes, cucumbers, and mini pumpkins. Later, my mom donated some broccoli and cauliflower starts. We got potatoes from my sister, but lost them somewhere in the garage until it was too late to plant them. Whoops!

I can't really blame Zoey for eating these!

Aside from vegetables, we planted a few strawberries (also from my mom. Have I mentioned what a kind, wonderful woman she is?) and our blueberries. We didn't get a lot from the berries – only two strawberries achieved any size at all, and we got maybe a dozen blueberries. By which I mean Zoey got a dozen blueberries. Someone, who may or may not be me, showed her the berries on the bush and she took it upon herself to harvest them all. This was the first year we've gotten any blueberries, though, so we were excited.

So how has it turned out? Results are mixed at this point. We planted all of the seeds at the beginning of May, when it was still on the cool side. This was a mistake for most things. We got a couple of pumpkins and squashes to sprout, but only one cucumber came up out of the several we planted...and it was sick and sad until recently.

The peas and beans did fantastically, although the beans got off to a slower start than the peas. The peas are starting to develop, and hopefully we'll be able to pick them in a couple of weeks. The beans haven't flowered yet, but given their growth recently, I anticipate a healthy crop of beans as well.

Peas were starting to form last week...

And this week, I'm tempted to pick them!

The broccoli and cauliflower were victims of neglect for a while, but are now planted and recovering nicely. And so we wait...and make more plans.

He thought he was safe...

But the pumpkin came for him in the night.

When Randy's parents came to visit, they brought us a wonderful greenhouse. This should help us make our own starts next year, and have a more productive start to our garden. Also, Randy plans to try growing peppers, which require a bit more heat. We'll see how it works out. So far, it's just a greenhouse with no shelves, although we do have a folding table we might donate to the cause.

Oh yes, we have plans for this...

Also, we want to try to save our own seeds. In theory, this will mean a better crop next year, as we'll save the seeds from the plants that do the best. If we manage to do this for several years straight, we'll end up with seeds perfectly adapted to our soil/climate/growing season. Since we don't know if it will work or not, though, we're going to hedge our bets and plant half the garden with our saved seeds and half with store seeds for a side-by-side test. If ours work, then there's another cost saver for future years! And if not...well, we'll have learned a lesson.

We're also looking into fall/winter planting. Given the requirement of going out in the rain and gloom to care for them, however, that might dwindle. It's a lot easier to stay motivated at this time of year, when the sun is shining every day!

The gnomes will watch over all (and hopefully weed for us, too!)

Bring On the Bratwursts!

I've said before how much I love my Kitchenaid mixer. Not only does it serve in its primary function as a mixer, it has oodles of attachments to play with. By far, the one I use the most is the meat grinder. Often, there are cuts of beef on sale for cheaper than ground beef (and without the potential presence of the dreaded “pink slime”). Even better, it has a sausage stuffer on it, enabling us to make our own bratwursts.

Making bratwursts is remarkably simple: grind the meat, add seasonings, and stuff into casings. The hardest part is finding the casings...and that's as simple as going to your closest meat market. If you're squeamish about using natural casings, you can also order collagen casings online.

Enough hog casings for 100 lbs of bratwursts

How the casings come packaged will vary based on the store selling them. At one of the markets near me, they just cut off a length from what they have soaked and prepared for their use that day...if they have enough out, they'll cut some off and put it in a baggie. The other only sells it by the hank – which is enough for about 100 pounds of sausages. Luckily, it can be sealed up with a Food Saver – making 100 lbs of sausage in one shot would be difficult! Regardless of which store I go to, I've never paid the same price twice for casings. I think the person working just guesstimates a price based on...something. The hank is more standardized in price – $25-30, and is much more economical in terms of per-pound cost; the shorter length tends to run about $1/pound. This time, the hank cost us $30.

We've been slowly buying meat to turn into bratwursts for the past few months; every time we go shopping, we buy a pork shoulder or a turkey. This month, we had trouble closing our freezer after we got back from shopping, so knew it was time to get to work making brats (and time to get a bigger freezer!)

Before we started, though, we had to strategize – this much sausage would take a while to make, and with a toddler and an infant, we just weren't going to have the time to get it done in one shot, unless we stayed up all night, sacrificing precious, precious sleep. Since that wasn't going to happen, we decided to spread the process out over three days (if we were making a smaller batch, we would have made it in one day).

DAY ONE: Cutting and Grinding

Gotta sharpen the blade!

We decided to focus on pork for the simple reason that one of our pork shoulders was thawed and we couldn't fit that and all three turkeys in the fridge. I think they were the same cut of meat, but they were labeled differently – one was called a “pork picnic roast” and the other was a “pork shoulder roast”. The only difference I saw was the pork picnic roast had more bones. In the end, $45 of pork shoulders yielded 29.25 lbs of ground meat.

One of three hunks o' pork

 

All cut up

Randy cut the meat into strips small enough to feed through the grinder (the instructions call for 1” chunks, but I've found that strips work just fine, as long as the diameter is not too large) and ground it all up. He then packaged it in gallon Ziploc bags – five pounds per bag. This process took two hours and three beers.

Get your grind on!

When all the grinding was done, we threw the bones in the crock pot and let it simmer overnight both to make stock, and to get some more meat off of the bones. This sounds a little penny-pinching, I know, but we ended up getting nearly two pounds of additional meat, which we drenched in barbecue sauce for sandwiches. We also got three quarts of stock.

DAY TWO: Seasoning

While Randy cut, ground, and packaged the meat on day one, I had child duty and looked up recipes in our sausage book this wonderful book. Luckily for my decision-making abilities, I was limited in my choices by the ingredients we have on hand. Plain bratwursts were a guarantee, as was a spicy version – we made double batches of both of those. However, with nearly 30 lbs of meat, we wanted to try some new variations as well. I settled on Garlic Sausage and Southwest Sausage.

Just a touch more heat, please!

That meant on the second day, we were ready to season the meat. We were not precise in our measurements according to the recipes, since most of them called for four pounds of meat and we had five pounds for each recipe. Also, we wanted to make the spicy sausages much spicier than the recipe (we had made it before).

Randy had the pleasure of mixing the seasonings into the cold meat. I was excited for him to do it; usually it's my job and I know how much it hurts after a bit...at least until your fingers go completely numb! By the last couple of batches, he had figured out how to minimize the time required. He spread the meat out in the bowl as thinly as he could and evenly sprinkled the seasonings over it so there were fewer clumps of spices. It still requires several minutes of mixing to get everything evenly distributed.

Randy before he mixed the meat.  That joy left about 20 seconds later

At that point, we put the ground meat back into the bags to sit overnight. This was mainly because it's much easier to stuff the casings when you have two people, so we had to wait until Zoey was asleep. It's too much to hope that both kids will sleep at the same time at this stage, but Parker is at least more or less stationary. The thought of chasing a toddler down with sausage hands is not fun.

A secondary, but also valid, reason was to let the spices meld and develop the flavors in the sausages. Given our general lack of patience, we were going to cook the brats the day we stuffed them; if we had seasoned and stuffed on the same day, the flavor wouldn't be the same.

This doesn't adequately show the loss of feeling in his fingers

The final step for day two was to prep the casings. They come packed in salt, which has to be rinsed off thoroughly. We pulled one long strand of casings out of the hank and rinsed it under cold water, then put it in a bowl of cool water to soak for 30 minutes. Then we put the casings in a Ziploc with fresh water and put it in the fridge to wait for the next day.

This process took one hour and one glass of wine to complete.

DAY THREE: Stuffing and cooking

This started with putting Zoey down for her nap and convincing Parker that he liked his swing. Once both kids were contained, we rushed to action. Sadly, this meant we didn't get any pictures of the process.  While it is tempting to use the longest strand of casings possible – both to maximize the look of the final product (who doesn't want a 30-foot string of sausages?) and to minimize the times I have to tie a knot in slippery casings, I've learned that anything over around six feet makes it difficult to twist the sausages into links.

Stuffing the sausages takes quite a bit of patience and a little trial and error in the technique used. The ground meat feeds through the stuffer quite slowly. To complicate matters, if you push too much meat through at a time, the plunger gets stuck and pulling it out creates an air pocket, which turns the casings into a balloon. Randy has mastered this end of it; he pushes the plunger down 2/3 of the way and then feeds more meat in. This ensures a steady flow of meat into the casings with no air pockets. Yet again, patience is the key – if you rush this, it will end up creating more work and frustration. If you do end up with an air pocket, just pop it with a toothpick and keep going.

The other aspect is holding the sausages as they are stuffed. Because our stuffer is an attachment to the Kitchenaid, it's about a foot over the counter. This means the weight of the stuffed sausages drags down the casings, resulting in thin, sad sausages unless someone supports the sausages as they are stuffed. The trick is moving the casings along so the sausages are full but not overfull; overfilling means the bratwursts will burst when twisted into links. We were reminded the hard way of this, as I overstuffed the garlic brats and had several split open while I was twisting them into links; I had to remove some of the sausage and try to tie off casings that had already been stuffed. Profanity ensued, and I ended up relegating those sausages to immediate cooking.

Casualties of over-stuffing;See the meat exploding out of the end?  Tragic, but still tasty!

It's also important to remember to leave a few inches of empty casing at the end, so you can tie a knot. Thankfully, this is easy to remember, and I didn't have to swear at this stage! It's better to leave a little more room than you need than not leave enough. Twist the stuffed casing into 4-5 inch lengths – you want to give it three or four turns. When you cut the links apart, the ends will stay sealed. I really don't know how it works, but it does – I suspect magic.

Some meat will always be lost – what is left in the tube of the stuffer. Because we had so many different batches, we didn't bother to clean the stuffer after each one; instead, we tried to sequence our stuffing to flavors that would match well, as we knew we'd have some blended sausages. Spicy-Southwest, Southwest-Garlic, etc. This way, we ended up losing the least amount of meat possible – maybe enough for one bratwurst.

Totally worth all of the effort!

The stuffing process took the two of us (in varying degrees of cooperation due to necessary child wrangling) three hours and three beers.

We ended up with 111 bratwursts. Even with overestimating the cost of the seasonings at five dollars, that comes out to a price of $0.54/brat, or $2.00/lb. The WinCo brand bratwursts sell for $3.99/lb and have who knows what quality of ingredients. I couldn't find an ingredient list for the WinCo brand, but Johnsonville (which costs a little more) has the following ingredient list:

         Pork, water, corn syrup and less than 2% of the following: salt, dextrose, monosodium            

         glutamate, flavorings, BHA, propyl gallate, citric acid.

I like the vagueness of “flavorings”; it lets me use my imagination!

Zoey and her grandpa waiting for bratwursts

Aside from knowing exactly what “flavorings” are in my sausages, I discovered – completely by accident – another health benefit. My dad has breathing problems, and some additive in the store bratwursts messes up his breathing. These don't. Needless to say, he likes the freshly made version a lot better. We are making him about 15 pounds of them – enough to keep him in stock for a while!

Some of these recipes call for differently ground meat – some call for a double grind (coarse, then fine), some call for one grind on fine, some for one on coarse. We did one coarse grind for all of it – the batch was big enough to make switching out the blades a pain in the butt - and didn't double grind any of it. I didn't notice a difference between these and the previous batches where we did the double grind.

My favorite of the four variations was the spicy, followed by the garlic because of their stronger flavors. The other two were also tasty, but it's hard to beat a good spicy bratwurst, and I believe garlic should be one of the main food groups, so that's an automatic win. Actually, with both the spicy and garlic recipes, we doubled the quantity of the main seasoning to enhance the flavor a bit more.

We also altered the directions that call for the meat to sit in the freezer for a short stint between steps. Since we refrigerated the meat overnight between steps, we didn't need to freeze it. All this does is chill the meat so it travels through the grinder better. A long stay in the fridge has the same effect. When making a smaller batch, I include the freezer step.

RECIPES

Process for all variations:

Prepare the casings if needed, by rinsing off any salt, then placing in a bowl of cool water for 30 minutes. Run cool water through the casings before stuffing.*

Cut the meat into 1-inch cubes. Freeze for 30 minutes to firm up before grinding.

Grind meat through the coarse plate of a meat grinder

In a large bowl, add seasonings and mix well, using your hands.

Stuff mixture into prepared casings, prick air pockets, and twist into 4-to-5-inch lengths. Cut the links apart with a sharp knife or scissors.

Refrigerate for up to three days or freeze.

Bratwurst

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

1 t white pepper**

1 t kosher or coarse salt

½ t crushed caraway seed

½ t dried marjoram

¼ t allspice

Garlic Sausage

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

½ c white wine

3 T minced garlic**

1T plus 1t kosher or coarse salt

2t sugar

1t black pepper

½ t ground ginger

¼ t allspice

¼ t cinnamon

¼ t nutmeg

¼ t ground thyme

Sicilian-Style Hot Sausage

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

2T kosher or coarse salt**

1T black pepper

2T habanero chili powder

¼ cup crushed red pepper

Southwest Pork Sausage

6 feet hog casing

5 lbs ground pork shoulder or butt (make sure there is some fat!)

1T plus 1t kosher or coarse salt**

1 T black pepper

2t crushed red pepper

1t coriander

1t cumin

½ t chili powder

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

*If desired, you can soak the casings again, this time adding 1T white vinegar for each cup of water. This softens the casings and makes them more transparent so the end product looks nicer.

**all measurements are for rounded spoons, as the base recipe was for four pounds of meat rather than five

Bagels - The Freshly Baked Breakfast

Who can resist this?

I have made bagels a few times throughout the years, with varied success. Usually, the flavor is good, but the height/density can get iffy. Sometimes, they turn out fine (although misshapen when compared to bakery bagels), but other times they look perfect after rising, look perfect in the water...and look like someone sat on them when they come out of the oven. Flat, dense, and not particularly apetizing.

Hrm. Research suggests that over-risen bagels will collapse when boiled, but these didn't – the collapse came in the oven. I'm guessing the reason is the same, though. The only thing I can see that might change it is, unfortunately, being more patient in the process. I feel like Indiana Jones... “Patience. Why does it always have to be patience?!?”

On the surface, this is counterintuitive; it seems that rushing the process (not letting the bagels rise as long) would solve the problem. However, the main step I have failed to follow in my bagel endeavors is adding more time. Most recipes call for retarding the rise in a refrigerator for at least six hours, and preferably overnight. The longest I ever made it was two hours.

Pfiffle, I thought, that's just unnecessary steps to make people feel fancy schmancy with their baking. Unfortunately, it seems to actually make a difference. Luckily, sourdough has helped me see the light in stretching out the process.

Also, Zoey and Parker rarely give me enough time to go through all the steps in one day, anyway.

I decided to go with the base recipe from The Fresh Loaf. They have good forums there that explain the steps and help troubleshoot – I like to check them out when looking up new baking recipes/techniques.

Of course, I didn't follow it completely, as I like adding stuff into my bagels – cheese and jalapenos for Randy and me, and cinnamon/raisin for Zoey. And me.

Also, the recipe calls for bread flour, which I keep putting off buying because it costs twice as much as all-purpose and I'm cheap. And it calls for malt powder which I don't have and couldn't find in WinCo's bulk section (if I can't find a baking ingredient there, it's dead to me)*; I used honey instead, which this recipe said was acceptable as a substitute.

It starts much like sourdough – making a sponge out of about half the flour and yeast and all of the liquid. It's a relatively short rise for a sponge (two hours), and then the remaining ingredients get added and kneaded in. (Full disclosure: I forgot to add the honey here and had to put it in halfway through the knead. It worked, but I don't recommend it. Ever.) This is a different method than the more typical throw-everything-in-a-bowl-and-mix-well routine I've seen before, and has the benefit of activating the yeast before the main flour is in, so the bagel dough itself doesn't have to rise that long.

Sadly, bagel dough is too stiff for my Kitchenaid to knead while I do other things; I have to knead it by hand. The one time I tried to make the mixer do it for me, it made angry sounds and threatened to quit. I rely on it too much to have that happen, so I relented and agreed to knead by hand in the future.

Almost good enough to eat raw.  Only not.

At the end of the knead, I split the dough in half and added in the extra ingredients before dividing and shaping the bagels. If I wasn't making two flavors, I'd have added these in sooner, but it works equally well either way – it's just a bit easier to mix them in before the dough gets too stiff. Two minutes of kneading ensured the ingredients got equally distributed.

The standard method for shaping bagels is to roll the dough into a ball, stick your thumb through the middle, and stretch the dough until it is a ring 4-5 inches in diameter. You can also roll the dough out into a 4-5” circle then poke a hole in the middle. Or make a rope 8-10” long and then pinch the ends together to form a ring. I tried all three so you can see the difference and so I could see if there was a difference in the end result.

Left to right: rolled out, hole-in-ball, and rope methods

After baking

As you can see in these pictures, there is a discernible difference, mainly with the bagels that I rolled out. However, that was probably due to me over-enthusiastically flattening the dough – a problem I had with the hamburger buns I made last week as well. The poke-a-hole-in-the-ball method is my favorite because it seems to have less potential for me to mess it up and those bagels came out looking the most bagel-y, but all three methods are about the same level of effort, so pick your poison.

What could all that meat be for?  Stay posted...

After shaping, let the bagels rise for 20 minutes, then throw them in the fridge overnight. I was silly and made these on the day of our monthly shopping trip, when fridge space is at a premium. Whoops.

Then I was done for the night, which was kind of nice. I celebrated with a beer. Not one of Randy's, because those are being bottled today (a nice Hefeweisen from a kit – made 6 gallons just in time for the sun – they should be carbonated and ready to drink in a couple of weeks).

Boil, my pretties!

The next morning, I boiled and baked the bagels. Boiling separates bagels from bread and gives them their distinctive chewiness. The morning cooking worked out well, since the kids tend to be more cheerful in the morning. Also, I had fresh bagels for breakfast! Even better, my hopes that the longer timeline would help solve the Great Bagel Flattening were upheld. Hooray!

The bagels probably would have risen more had I used a higher-gluten flour (bread flour), but these came out just dandy, so I can pinch my pennies a bit longer.

We probably ate them a little sooner than we should have, because Zoey was standing behind me the entire time saying “Okay, mama, want dinner. Okay, mama, I eat now. Okay, mama, blue seat” (The seat in question is her booster seat). I felt like Gordon Ramsay was standing behind me yelling “How LONG? Get it together! It's a simple breakfast, for God's sake!” Luckily, these don't take long to cook!

My Ultimate Eggwich (fried egg, cheese, bacon, avocado, and tomato.  Not low-cal)

*Luckily for my gluten-free experimentation, I discovered they carry xantham gum in bulk.

RECIPE

Sponge:
1 teaspoon instant yeast ($0.03)
4 cups flour (500g) ($0.32)
2 1/2 cups water

Dough:
1/2 teaspoon instant yeast ($0.01)
3 3/4 cups flour (470g) ($0.30)
2 3/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon honey

Additions:

4 oz cheddar cheese, grated

1/3 – ½ cup nacho jalepenos, chopped roughly

OR

1- 1 ½ c raisins

1 rounded tablespoon cinnamon

Finishing touches:
1 tablespoon baking soda for the water ($0.01)
Cornmeal for dusting the pan ($0.02)

The Night Before
Stir the yeast into the flour in a large mixing bowl. Add the water and stir until all ingredients are blended. Cover and allow to rise for two hours.
Stir the additional yeast into the sponge.
Add 3 cups of the flour, the honey, and the salt into the bowl and mix until all of the ingredients form a ball. Add in any additional ingredients (blueberries, raisins, cheese, etc.) here if you are making the whole batch the same
Work in the additional 3/4 cups of flour to stiffen the dough, either while kneading. The dough should be stiffer and drier than normal bread dough, but moist enough that all of the ingredients are well blended.
Pour the dough out of the bowl onto a clean surface and knead for 10 minutes.
**If you are making multiple flavors, divide the dough in half and add your additional ingredients here**
Split the dough into a dozen small pieces around 4 1/2 ounces each.


Roll each piece into a ball and set it aside. When you have all 12 pieces made, cover them with a damp towel and let them rest for 20 minutes.
Shape the bagels by poking a hole in the middle of each ball and stretching to desired size
Place the shaped bagels on an oiled sheet pan, with an inch or so of space between one another (use two pans, if you need to). If you have parchment paper, line the sheet pan with parchment and spray it lightly with oil before placing the bagels on the pan.
Cover the pan with plastic and allow the dough to rise for about 20 minutes.
Put covered pans in the refrigerator until morning.



In the morning:

Preheat the oven to 500.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

(optional) Add one tablespoon of baking soda to the water

When the pot is boiling, drop a few of the bagels into the pot one at a time and let them boil for a minute. Use a large, slotted spoon or spatula to gently flip them over and boil them on the other side.

Before removing bagels from the pot, sprinkle corn meal onto the sheet pan.
Remove bagels one at a time, set them back onto the sheet pan.
**If you are topping your bagels rather than mixing extras in, top them here, while the bagels are still moist**

When all the bagels have boiled, place the sheet pan into the preheated oven and bake for 5 minutes.

Reduce the heat to 450 degrees, rotate the pan, and bake for another 5 minutes until the bagels begin to brown.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool

Corn Tortillas: Better Than You Can Imagine

I know I just wrote about fried rice as the best go-to meal for left-over meat, but tacos provide an equally good (and quicker) option. I love tacos more than any food except pizza...and tacos are catching up now that I know how wonderful fresh tortillas are.

The dough should just stick together in a ball

What's not to love? There's a great mixture of flavors, temperatures (hot meat and beans, cold tomatoes and sour cream), and textures. Even the most basic of tacos – the taco truck fare that is a small corn tort with little more than some tender, shredded meat in it – has a strangely comforting feeling about it.

I always wondered why the corn tortillas from restaurants and taco trucks were so much better than those I bought at the store. The answer: freshness. The store-bought corn tortillas always seemed a bit dry and, well, stale. While cheap, they aren't really worth it, although they do fry up well in oil for a semi-crunchy shell.

I am in love with my tortilla press.  Sorry, Randy.

However, with the acquisition of our tortilla press and the relative ease of making flour tortillas, I decided to give corn torts a whirl. While even simpler than flour tortillas ingredient-wise (masa and water), corn tortillas are a little more challenging to me.

The first batch drove me to profanity. I followed the directions on the bag of masa, and the dough seemed to be the right texture. It pressed out into beautiful rounds...which then stuck to the parchment paper and wouldn't come loose in anything close to one piece.

Randy the Tortilla Master had to step in and save dinner and my sanity. He figured out two things that make corn tortillas a whole lot less frustrating.

First, the dough should actually look a little on the dry and crumbly side, but be just wet enough to form into a cohesive ball in your hand. If the tortillas are sticking, they are probably too wet. Add a little masa and things will be fine.

So much easier than trying to peel it off the paper!

The second trick is to leave the tortilla on the parchment paper until you have it on the griddle. Put the tortilla in the pan (tort side down, of course – you're not trying to toast the paper!) and then peel the paper off. It comes off a little easier, and even if there is a slight tear, the tort is already cooking and is easily repaired.

These cook at a lower temperature and take longer than flour tortillas. They cook for about two minutes on each side, which means a batch takes longer. Because of this, I highly suggest cooking them on a griddle so you can cook several at a time without using every burner on your stove.

Randy actually used the griddle and a pan so he could cook four at a time. I don't blame him. I was irritated both at my failure and at his easy success. Yes, I am petty enough to be upset when someone succeeds where I have not. Especially when I'm hungry. However, feeding me is always an easy way to cheer me up, and since he's a smart man, Randy got things cooked as quickly as possible.

The one on the right is flipped - these barely darken when cooked

The tortillas turned out brilliantly. It's almost like a completely different food than the supermarket tortillas. They are tender and soft and flavorful and just the right size for a small taco. Zoey has begun announcing out of the blue “OK, Mama, I want tortilla.” I think she phrases it as if I offered one to her so I'll feel obligated to follow through. Clever, clever girl.

RECIPE:

2 cups (180 grams) masa

1 cup water

*Mix masa and water until you have a dough that is just moist enough to come together in a ball.

*Divide into 12 equal portions (roughly 1.5 ounces each) and press or roll into 6-inch rounds.

*Cook on a griddle set to 300F or in a pan over medium heat for two minutes each side.

*Place on a plate and cover with a damp cloth until all tortillas are cooked.

*Devour.

SPECIAL REQUESTS?

In July, I'm going to experiment with gluten-free recipes. I have no idea what I'm doing or where to start, so I'm pretty excited – I love making new things! There's just so much out there that I'm lacking direction, so I'm turning to you. What do you want me to try? (Results most definitely not guaranteed, but I'll give it my best shot and let you know where my mistakes happen).

Fried Rice - In 30 Minutes, You'll Want It Again!

Big bowl of yum

One of our favorite ways to stretch leftovers is with fried rice. When I first made this several years ago, Randy was skeptical. Fried rice should be left to restaurants, he thought. I soon converted him, to the point that he now suggests I make it even when we have no leftovers to use in it.

Leftover BBQ works perfectly. 

I like cooking this because it is so versatile and uses a little bit of whatever I have on hand, rather than sticking to a strict recipe. I've made it with leftover teriyaki, barbecue, even meat cooked in mushroom soup. I usually include eggs, but it's good without. Fresh veggies and frozen both work well (and again, you can choose to include pretty much whatever vegetable you want). I also like it because I get to eat fried rice when I'm done!

While I don't stress about having the exact right ingredients to make fried rice, I have found some seasonings make a big difference. The main one? Fish sauce. It surprised me when I first discovered it – I don't even remember why I decided to put it in. Probably because I had a bottle of it in the cupboard forever and thought something along the lines of “Fish sauce and fried rice are both Chinese* Therefore, they should be good together.” And they were, therefore proving the infallibility of my logic.

If you are missing some of the seasonings, you can always just mess around with what you have on hand. At one point or another, I have made this successfully while missing one or more of the seasonings, and I change it slightly each time I make it – the different result each time is one of the joys of making fried rice. This works because with fried rice, the technique is as important as the ingredients. As with most recipes, patience is the key when making fried rice. If you rush it, you end up with a dish that tastes like fried rice, but has the wrong texture. Patience plays into texture in two ways.

See how the grains are separate? Hard to do with fresh, hot rice.

First, fried rice is best when made with leftover rice. Whenever we have rice for dinner, I make a full 6-cup rice-cooker full, even though we never eat that much. That way, we can have fried rice the next day. Day-old rice works better than freshly cooked because it dries out a little, and the grains separate more easily.

If, like me, you sometimes forget to make rice ahead of time (or forget to put the rice in the fridge overnight and end up tossing it) you can still achieve this effect to a lesser extent by cooking your rice a couple of hours ahead of time, then separating it as much as possible and putting it in the fridge. If you have room, spread it out on a cookie sheet; if not, use the widest dish you can – you want to increase the surface area as much as you can. This might seem like a petty step, but it really does make a difference.

Look at all that goodness!

The other time that patience comes into play is during the cooking. You want to be sure to let the rice cook long enough so the flavors blend and so the rice gets the right fried texture. I'm not a patient person by nature, so I have to distract myself with cleaning or something similar to prevent myself from messing with the rice too much or getting bored and deciding it's done prematurely.

Other than that, the main effort involved is in prep – chopping up the meat into small pieces, scrambling eggs, cutting veggies (if using fresh), etc. Once all the chopping is done, it's mostly a matter of waiting for the rice to fry up to the right consistency.

In the recipe below, all measurements are of the “ish” nature – I more or less just dump things in on top of the rice in the wok and then adjust if it tastes off. I did measure the oil the last time I made it because that's a delicate balance – you want enough to coat the rice and let it fry, but not so much that the end product is greasy.

Taking pictures prevents me from eating it too soon!

We make this as our full dinner, but it can easily be made as part of a Chinese food feast with some egg rolls and sweet and sour pork (recipe forthcoming!). It holds up well as leftovers, and I often will have it for lunch the following day.

*Wikipedia informs me that fish sauce is actually used more in Vietnamese and Thai cooking. It is used in some parts of China, though, so I wasn't totally ignorant and wrong. Just mostly.

RECIPE

2 cups leftover meat

4 eggs

1-2 cups vegetables

4-8 cups cooked white rice

4 T vegetable oil

2 t sesame oil

2 T fish sauce

2 T rice vinegar

2 T soy sauce

2 T teriyaki sauce

1 t 5-spice

1 t ground mustard

½ t ground ginger

*Dice meat into small (¼ – ½”) cubes

*Scramble eggs and set aside

*Dice up vegetables into small (¼ – ½”) cubes

*Heat vegetable oil and sesame oil in wok or large frying pan over medium high heat until a piece of rice sizzles when it's dropped in

*Add rice to oil and stir well to coat with oil. Let fry, stirring occasionally for 4-5 minutes

*Add fish sauce, rice vinegar, soy sauce, teriyaki sauce, 5-spice powder, mustard, and ginger. Mix well to evenly season the rice.

*Cook, stirring occasionally for 10-15 minutes.

*Add meat, vegetables, and eggs, and mix well.

*Cook, stirring occasionally, until the meat and vegetable are hot (5-10 minutes)

Linked to This Week's Cravings at The Daily Dish

Sourdough...Cookies?

I think I'm starting to get the hang of this sourdough thing. Making a loaf or two every week has helped, as did all the tips I got from people who have much more experience than I do! One thing I figured out early on is that I have to be patient – giving it more time really makes a big difference in the end product.

I also figured out some techniques to increase the sour flavor. The one I settled on was to use a little bit of rye flour in the starter. Some people also use citric acid, but to me that seems like cheating. I'm not sure why one added ingredient is legitimate in my mind and the other is cheating, but there you go. There are plenty of other things I want to try to improve the basic recipe, but I have to be patient and get some more ingredients. Luckily, I'm on break until September, so I have lots of time to play with it! I've put my updated recipe at the bottom of the post.

See those bubbles?  That's an active starter!

Now that I have the basics down, I thought I'd look around and see what else I can use my starter for, despite Randy's plaint of “Why does everything have to be sourdough?” I love sourdough and will make ALL THE THINGS  out of it!

Luckily for me (not so much for Randy), it appears that you can use sourdough starter in pretty much everything you bake. Some things are just variations of other recipes that I like – whole-grain sourdough bread and sourdough English muffins. Many of the other recipes I found made a lot of sense – things that regularly call for sour cream or buttermilk like pancakes or coffee cake.

One, though, made me scratch my head. Sourdough sugar cookies. Um...what? That just doesn't compute. However, there are dozens of recipes out there, so they must be decent. Of course I had to try it!

I figured it it was win-win – either I they would turn out delicious and I'd have a tasty treat...or they'd be unappetizing and I'd avoid stuffing my face with cookies.

I fed my starter – but only once instead of twice, since the rise wasn't as important (and the recipe called for baking powder and baking soda, and eggs which act as leaveners as well). It got nice and poofy – I've fed it a lot in the past couple of weeks as we are re-building our bread stock, so it's nice and active.

Many people talked about adding different ingredients into the base recipe (due to trying to make them edible, Randy would say), so I thought I'd experiment with several variations in the same batch. Some, I left plain, some I topped snickerdoodle style with cinnamon and sugar, and some I put dried cranberries in.

The dough was very soft and I worried that they would spread a lot, but they kept a very nice shape. They came out very light – the lightest cookies I've ever made. I was, at first, unimpressed with the flavor of the plain cookie; it wasn't bad, it was just a bit blah. These are not very sweet cookies. However, it left a pleasant, lingering taste in my mouth.

The cookies with added flavor were better. The snickerdoodle flavored variety tasted, well, like snickerdoodles, but with a lighter texture. The real winner, though, was the cranberry cookie. They tasted very similar to scones. If I make these again, I will add cranberries to the entire batch.

Look at that poofy texture!

Overall, I am calling this experiment a success. The biggest evidence of success was that Randy – who

didn't even want to try them – couldn't stop eating them.

RECIPE (Total Cost: $1.24)

½ cup butter, softened ($0.63)

1 cup white sugar ($0.26)

1 egg ($0.12)

1 cup sourdough starter

1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour ($0.14)

2 tsp baking powder ($0.01)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla extract ($0.08)

¼ tsp baking soda (< $0.01)

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease or line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

*In a large bowl, cream the butter with the sugar.

*Beat in the egg and sourdough starter.

*Stir in remaining ingredients and beat until smooth.

*Drop dough by teaspoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets

*Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

UPDATED SOURDOUGH BREAD RECIPE

To keep the starter alive, feed it every couple of weeks or so - remove one cup of starter and replace with 3/4 c flour* & 1/2 c water, mixing in.  (If it has separated, just stir it back together).

To make the bread:
1 cup starter
5 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 c water
1T salt
optional: 2T wheat bran (helps rise and be less dense)

The day before baking: Feed the starter at least twice, leaving it out on the counter. You want to get it super active; this helps it rise farther and faster. I was skeptical, but it makes quite a big difference.

The night before you bake the bread, combine starter, water, and 2 1/2 cups of the flour.  Mix until smooth, then cover and let sit out until the morning. Feed the remaining starter as described above and put it back in the fridge.

In the morning, add in the salt and remaining flour to make a dough.**
Let rest 10 minutes
Knead 10 minutes

Let rise until doubled.  This takes about 3 hours at my house, but yours is usually a bit warmer, so may take less time for you.
Shape into loaves and let rise until doubled again.  This takes about six hours for me, but again, may take less for you.  I usually start checking after three hours or so
Bake @ 400 for 55-60 minutes

*You get a better sour flavor if you replace 2T of the flour with rye flour, but it's completely optional.  Also, these measurements are customizable - if it gets stiffer than you want, up the water; if you seem to be losing starter, put more flour/water in.

**I've noticed that SD dough tends to be a bit wetter than other dough.  This is especially notable when kneading (it holds form and kneads well, but has a tendency towards getting sticky) and after the first rise, it'll need a dusting of flour.  I usually dust it lightly with flour AND grease the bowl lightly when it's rising to keep the sticking issues down.

English Muffins - Buttered Bliss

Why?  Because breakfast doesn't get any better than this.

The lower element for our oven finally came in this week. To celebrate...I decided to make English muffins. Which don't need the oven to cook. I didn't think of it last week, when I wanted a sandwich but had no bread – I was too focused on tortillas – especially after the wonderful and generous Page G gave us a tortilla press! Now, when I can make actual bread, I decide that English muffins would be better.

I'm logical like that.

There are two basic variations of English muffin recipes. One calls for making a batter, pouring it into rings, then cooking on a griddle or skillet. The other has a stiffer dough that gets rolled out, and the muffins are cut out like biscuits. The second method also usually calls for cooking on a griddle or skillet, although the odd recipe or two says to bake them.

Batter, pre-proofing.  I had to resist adding more flour.

I decided to go with the batter method, mostly because I made them once a couple of years ago and they turned out well. I'm not sure why I haven't made them again since then, but I can guarantee it won't be another two years before the next time. It probably won't be two days, honestly.

I used Alton Brown's recipe with the slight adjustment of using lard instead of shortening. Why lard? After last week's experiments in tortilla making, the feedback was overwhelmingly in favor of lard over shortening so we bought lard instead of shortening on our monthly shopping trip.

Turns out lard makes excellent tortillas – much lighter than oil. It worked out pretty well in the English muffins as well.

"Custom" muffin rings.  AKA wide-mouth canning rings

Like tortillas, English muffins are so easy to make that I don't know why I haven't been making them forever. The total time invested was less than an hour, half of which was waiting for the dough to proof. Once the dough was proofed, I was able to make the rest of breakfast while the muffins cooked.

Hot, fresh, English muffins for breakfast? Yes, please.

I had a little difficulty with covering the muffins as they cooked – mostly not thinking about the broiler pan I used touching the dough and messing it up. This is easily solved, however, by putting the rings closer together and/or putting something slightly taller on the griddle for the pan to rest on.

I went an extra step and toasted the muffins before eating them. I can't imagine eating an un-toasted English muffin – the extra level of crispiness is essential to the experience.

Halfway there

The other change I made was largely an excuse to play with my new digital scale; I decided to weigh the flour instead of measuring it by volume. Supposedly, it's the only way to go, since it will always be accurate, whereas volume measurements can vary based on sifted v. non-sifted, accuracy of leveling, etc. Some people insist measuring by weight is vital to properly executing any recipe.

I'm not entirely convinced – after all, I've successfully made oodles of things without weighing my ingredients – but I will admit I like the idea of accuracy. Also, I want to start putting actual cost comparisons up with the recipes that are more than just a guesstimate. Since most of the ingredients give a weight-based price, it makes sense to weigh out how much I use.

Of course, I didn't weigh all the ingredients for this, the first attempt. In my defense, I made these first thing in the morning and wasn't fully caffeinated yet. Also, some ingredients I don't have price variants for. I will get better, I promise. I'm making a spreadsheet and everything. Organization. I can learn.

Based on the prices I do know (everything except sugar and salt), I can safely say this recipe costs less than one dollar to make. It probably comes in under fifty cents (I can't imagine the cost of the sugar and salt combined are much more than 10 cents, considering how little the other ingredients cost).

I may have had trouble waiting...

Considering the output – eight English muffins – the per-unit cost is somewhere less than $0.13. Costco's best price is $4.33 for 12 muffins, or $0.36 each. While 36 cents doesn't seem like an outrageous price, who doesn't like getting something for 1/3 of the price? There's also – as always – the bonus of ingredient control.

  These turned out wonderfully, with all the nooks and crannies you could hope for, just waiting for butter to melt into them and jam to seal them off.  I may or may not have eaten more than one before I let Randy know breakfast was ready. This probably off-set the health benefit of making my own.  I'll just have to make them more often so the novelty wears off and I can resist temptation better.

Beautiful.

RECIPE

• 1 cup warm milk ($0.19)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt (divided)
• 1 tablespoon lard ($0.05 max – guessed on weight)
• 1 envelope (7 grams) dry yeast ($0.04)
• 1/8 teaspoon sugar
• 1/3 cup warm water
• 2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour, sifted ($0.16)
• Non-stick vegetable spray
• Special equipment: electric griddle, 3-inch metal rings (or wide-mouth canning rings)
  

Total known cost: $0.44. Total estimated cost: $0.60.
In a bowl combine the milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and lard. Stir until the sugar and salt are dissolved. In a separate bowl combine the yeast and 1/8 teaspoon of sugar in 1/3 cup of warm water and rest until yeast starts to bubble. Add this to the milk mixture. Add the flour and beat thoroughly with wooden spoon. Cover the bowl and let it rest in a warm spot for 30 minutes.
Preheat the griddle to 300 degrees F. This equates to medium or medium-low on your stove top – 4 or 5 on the dial.
Add the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt to mixture and beat thoroughly. Place metal rings onto the griddle and coat lightly with vegetable spray. Equally divide the batter into eight rings. Cook for 6 minutes. Remove the lid and flip rings using tongs. Cover with the lid and cook for another 6 minutes or until golden brown. Place on a cooling rack, remove rings and cool. Split with fork and serve.
.

Linked to This Week's Cravings via the Daily Dish

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